Zero's Clockwork Familiar
by Aztez Fan
Summary: Louise thought she had failed, having only summoned a measly clockwork doll with porcelain skin. However once hearing its special music box lullaby, and waking up the next day seeing it move around as if it were a living person, she starts to wonder if she's real a zero after all.


Louise casted another spell angrily at a wall, the spelling failing at what she wanted it to do and exploding into a cloud of smoke. Gripping her wand tightly enough to make her knuckles white she heard someone walk up to her. It was her arch-rival Kirche, tho it would only be a rivalry if Louise could put up a challenge. "Louise, I know that you did not summon what you wan-"

"Shut, Up, Zerbst!..." The pink mage said before casting another spell at the poor wall, not even caring when her spell failed and exploded. Kirche had always teased Louise, their family had been at odds for a long time after all and screwing around with the Vallière was very entertaining. However, seeing the short mage, the zero, as she had called so many times now simply venting her anger on all wall, was just too pathetic for even Kirche to make fun of.

"..I know your mad at summoning that doll but look on the bright side. At least you summoned something, heck you even successfully finished the ritual. So that means your not a zer-" She stopped speaking when Louise whirled around and casted a spell past her head, blowing off the leaves of a tree with tears in her eyes.

"Not, another, word!..." Utterly stunned by Louise's sure anger the red-haired mage understood that she was not wanted, no need in poking at the distraught girl any longer. "...Just, try not to push yourself..." With that Kirche left, leaving Louise all alone she turned back to the wall and tried to cast again, only to find herself unable to do having drained herself from 5 hours of spell casting.

With a look of despair, Louise gave up, putting away her wand and walking back to her room, ignoring the looks her fellow classmates were giving her along the way. Once she made it Louise opened the door, scowling when she saw what she summoned. It was special yes, but not in a living way, being made off porcelain and metal. A Clockwork Doll around her size with a porcelain exterior and looking much like a human, just without a face and was completely white.

On its right hand was the familiar runes, the only proof that she can even so much as cast a real spell so much complete it. As Louise walked up to it she just could not understand, why a doll, why was her familiar simply an inmate clockwork porcelain doll. With shaking balled fists she yells out in frustration and hit the doll in its expressionless blackface, the force of the hit sending a piece off flying.

When she realized what she did Louise panicked and quickly caught the piece before it fell to the floor and shatter, accidentally cutting herself on the shard. Placing the piece on the table and covering her hand with a handkerchief, grinding her teeth tightly as the bleeding stopped. Hitting her head with her good hand a few times she slammed her head in the table and screamed.

As she finished yelling out and crying she pulled up her head, looking at the porcelain shard from her familiar. Picking it with care she walked over to her familiar and put the shard back into place, noticing that she had not cleaned her blood of it. But she could care less about that, simply setting down on a chair and soon sobbing into her hands.

What was Louise going to tell her family, she summoned a porcelain doll? They were sure to disown her after hearing this, she had one shot at proving she was a mage and, she failed regardless of her success at the summoning ritual. Everyone else got some kind of useful familiar, the ever boastfully Guiche summoned a mule who can dig and find things. Kirche summoning a fire salamander from a volcano.

And most damaging was Tabitha who summoned a dragon, something Louise said she was going to do. With everyone getting a living creature and herself getting an inanimate object was simply unfair, why had it to be her who got the short end of the stick. "Because you a zero, Louise, even when you succeed, you always fail somehow..."

As that sentence repeated in her mind she noticed something on the back of the doll's neck. A small keyhole that seems just out of place overall. Blinking she stood upright and searched her pocket pulling out a key. She had found it laying nearby the doll when it was summoned, and now wondered just what it did.

Putting the key into the hole she heard a click before soon turning the key a few times as Louise could tell something was winding up. Letting go she started to hear a familiar tune start to play, the doll apparently had a music box somewhere inside it and the tune it played was...the same tune her mother would use sing so Louise could sleep.

A slight smile appeared on her face as Louise closed her eyes, it was a sad one, but a smile none the less as she remembered the tune her mother sang. It was a somber one, but at the same time brought back happy memories that she had forgotten, or rather had neglected to remember. As the tune played she opened her eyes she noticed the doll was dancing in place.

At first, she jumped but once she realized that it must have been the clockworks dolls purpose she called down. In a way, it reminded her of the dancing elves that would come to life at night in the dining hall. That shook her up a bit when she first saw it happen, altho the novelty of it wore off fast. However, seeing the faceless blank doll dance to the tune that her mother sang simply made her happy. Maybe this familiar wasn't so bad after all.

Yawing Louise knew that sleep was calling her to be, the song soothing her on to bed as she changed into her nightgown and pulled her covers over herself. Smiling contently as she closed her eyes with the last thing she saw was the doll finish its dance and the song came to an end. Once she fell asleep, however, the doll turned its head slowly over to look at Louise for a moment on its own, touching its cheek where it had been punched before going back to dancing to its musical lullaby. The echo of its music box being heard down the halls of the girls dorm.


End file.
